Well, B and I decided to celebrate our 10th anniversary a bit early. We figured we will probably be in Michigan on the actual day (Dec. 30 for those who don’t know) wishing we were somewhere else a lot warmer. So now we will still be in the same place at the same time thinking the same thing, only we will have already been in the warmer place, and we will just be really cold while we think about how we already celebrated in that warmer place. Should be a lot of fun. So we went to a beach resort, and left the kids with Grandaddy and Lola where they watched movies, ate good food, and made things like dolls and rubberband guns. We enjoyed 4 nights away, and 5 days. The nights were nice, and so were the days. Although we were at a beach resort, we only were in the water once. We went snorkeling, but while we were out we noticed about 8 people on the veranda of our room having what sounded like a very fun party. We cut our snorkeling time short to get back to our room to join the party (and to see what the occasion was) but it turned out we were gate crashers and only the entire housekeeping staff and trainees were invited. Oh well. It was windy much of the time and we spent most of it either in bed, or in the rocking chairs on the porch. Between us we read 7 books, and took 15 showers.

The resort was very nice by Filipino standards, and nice by western ones, although the food was limited to ‘ok’ Filipino food. Actually, they had good bacon, which is impressive here, but not that hard to produce. The rooms are kept up, and the landscaping is nice. Usually a resort will either be nice but not maintained, or stripped down so that it does not need to be maintained as much. It was wonderful to stay somewhere that was built nice, AND maintained. We had a second floor room that overlooked the ocean from a height of about 50 feet. The small section of the ocean that we overlooked contained a coral reef, and so the clear water was dappled with different shades of aqua-blue and green. They had built around the existing trees (which is also unusual here) and so the view was only partially obscured by leafy masses. It made for some good framing.

I cleaned up the kitchen this morning. It actually IS a regular occurrence! The problem with cleaning up the kitchen is that it leaves no obvious morsels sitting about for the ants. And boy, do we have ants! Wildlife thrives in this country and I often feel like WE are the intruders! Why should I blame all these creatures for trying to reclaim this territory? I have finally come to the conclusion that the only way to control this many ants is with poison! And a lot of it! And well… I just really don’t want that in the kitchen. Can you blame me? So I have given up the battle… and it has turned into a race.
Ethan had his friend, Toby, over to play so I thought I would heat up some chicken nuggets to feed them. No use starting food battles with other peoples children by trying to serve healthy food 😉 Well, what I hadn’t realized is that all those ants trying to reclaim my house were STARVING! I flipped the nuggets halfway through cooking and left the spatula on the counter. Ten minutes later when I came to take them out, the spatula was swarming with itty-bitty ants! I had to wash it to be able to use it. Then I had to store it on a rack, on a plate, on an unlit burner, on the stove and hope they didn’t find it before I needed it again. The race had begun. Now little boys aren’t crazy about eating burning hot food fresh out of the oven so I was trying to figure out how to let it cool long enough but still be able to serve it to the boys before the ants got to it. I moved it around to a few different spots, so the ants wouldn’t find it as quickly and they seemed to be satisfied with the many crumbs that fell off the spatula. So the next question is whether to wipe them all up or let them finish carrying off those crumbs. And since I am really tired of my washcloths being covered in ants all the time, I think I will let them feast and wipe up the counter after they have all gone home.